The Supreme Court’s recent landmark judgment, which ensures that convicted politicians will now get immediately disqualified from contesting in elections or holding office, marks an end to almost a two decade long tug-of-war between political parties and the Election Commission over the right of electoral candidacy to tainted candidates. While it is surely a landmark judgment and it’s not fair to be critical about everything, yet, the board is split into equal halves in their opinion towards the SC ruling, as pros and cons of the judgment seem to weigh equally.

On the one hand, just because a case is hanging against a candidate, it is grossly unfair for the person to be assumed disqualified (due to the hyped up fear of future conviction) – as the allegation could well be fabricated. As it often happens in the political domain, a candidate could be debarred based on false allegation brought about by vested interests to stonewall him from standing in an election. It’s quite easy and simple: just file a case against him, tom tom the fact that the candidate could end up getting convicted, and he is done for good.

Morally, it’s our Constitutional right to remain innocent until proved guilty. And if that doctrine is applicable to all Indian citizens, it is only fair that the same applies to the politicians as well. It is not that the SC judgment goes against this. But the scrutiny that politicians will face now, especially the honest ones who have trumped up cases against them, could well be unfair. The attempts over the years to enforce stringent rules against political candidates has been to stem the growing criminalization of Indian politics and to debilitate the nefarious nexus of politicians with goons and unlawful activities. But I have to admit, in this attempt to secure a fine balance between being just and unjust, it is debatable how far the strings should be pulled in curbing criminal activities in politics and how much latitude should be given to electoral candidates. The fact also is that a mind-numbing high percentage of Indian politicians have got criminal cases pending against them, most of which are genuine, but they are not convicted due to their muscle power. Read More....

India’s scams and corruption are perennially ubiquitous – they keep recurring time and again. There is hardly a month that goes unnoticed without any major scam breaking out. It is not that there isn’t any scam elsewhere, but barring some sub-Saharan and Asian rogue states ruled by the junta, the scale and magnitude of Indian scams have outperformed every other nation by an unprecedented margin of frequency and scale. Typically, a scam exposé starts off with media frenzy and then gets lost into thin air! The typical Indian middle class’ short memories, inevitably brushes the scam off, and then the judiciary typically bails out the accused, and everything is business as usual. Even though media spotlight continues on the case for a while, the same mostly focuses on the economic aspect of it, largely ignoring the enormous social impact. Mostly, the multi-million dollar scams that prop up every now and then have huge negative externalities both at the regional and national level.

Let me talk a little about the recent scam, which has been rocking the nation – Coalgate! Coal mining – the lifeline of thermal power that constitutes around 66 per cent of installed capacities in power generation in India – is very inefficiently run, and I’m being graciously modest when I say that. The sector is marred by massive pilferage and corruption with open disregard to environment and conservation. However, there are many other serious ground concerns that have been missed amidst the entire current hullabaloo. To start with, the mandatory regulation of open cast and underground mining requirement is flouted openly, causing health hazards on account of environmental degradation per se. The corruption level is beyond one’s wildest imagination. Sample this: even the sand purchased to fill the old mines is being sold in the open markets for petty gains!

There have been waves of protests in most of the coal mining states – particularly socially conscious Maharashtra – against pollution, environment hazards, and land acquisition... but nothing much was done. Land procurement is done by the government, and also by the private coal mining companies, which have very little respect for the laws, and who have very little good-faith negotiations with the land owners! And mind you, these activities are on since decades, even before any coal scam was discovered. Read More....